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Chart of the Day: Despite Trump's Tax Cuts, GDP Expectations Sag

By The Fiscal Times Staff

April 23, 2018

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The Commerce Department is scheduled to issue its advance estimate of first-quarter GDP on Friday, and the report is widely expected to show economic growth slowed over the first few months of the year. Economists polled by Macroeconomic Advisers now expect 1.7 percent growth, down from 2.9 percent for the fourth quarter of 2017 — and significantly lower than previously forecast.

“There is little reason to fret the economy is truly flagging,” writes The Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart. “Still, the first quarter was when the tax cut took effect, raising the take-home pay of many Americans in addition to sharply reducing corporate taxes. That ought to have boosted consumer spending, but apparently it wasn’t enough to offset the temporary factors weighing on the economy in the first quarter.”